ORLANDO, Fla., (May 22, 2009) – Golfweek magazine, the most authoritative, authentic and independent publication in golf, will release its second annual Golfweek’s Best Municipal Courses list as part of its upcoming May 23 issue. The newest addition to the magazine’s extensive collection of rankings, the 2009 Golfweek’s Best Municipal Courses list features the nation’s top 50 government-owned layouts that have raised the bar for public golf in the United States.
The top three tracks on the Golfweek’s Best Municipal Courses list are all U.S. Open sites: No. 1 Bethpage State Park (Black), which will stage next month’s U.S. Open in Farmingdale, N.Y.; No. 2 Chambers Bay, home of the 2015 national championship; and No. 3 Torrey Pines (South), which played host to Tiger Woods’ dramatic Open victory last summer.
“We’re in the middle of an unprecedented two-year run of municipal courses hosting the U.S. Open,” said Bradley S. Klein, national director of Golfweek’s Best Courses ratings program. “All told, 25 states are represented on our list – California leads with eight courses, followed by Arizona and Utah with four each – thus proving that municipal golf is thriving across the country.”
To produce the Golfweek’s Best Municipal Courses list, a nationwide team of more than 475 evaluators rated the layouts on the basis of 10 criteria, including routing, conditioning, variety and memorability of holes. The result is an average of scores, which then dictates a course’s overall ranking.
“So many golfers have roots in municipal golf, so it was fun for us to aggregate a list of the best munis in the country,” said Jeff Babineau, vice president and editor of Golfweek. “To most, the term ‘muni’ once conjured images of playing in some scruffy dustbowl track – but to look down this list of top courses, the overall quality is really phenomenal.”
Visit Top100.Golfweek.com/GolfweeksBest to view the complete list of Golfweek’s Best Municipal Courses.
About Golfweek’s Best Ratings
Since beginning its rating system in 1997, Golfweek has developed the most respected ranking structure in the industry. Every year, Golfweek’s nationwide team of course raters, which currently boasts more than 475 evaluators, survey more than 2,200 courses – rating each nominated course on the basis of Golfweek’s 10 strict standards of evaluation. Collectively, Golfweek raters have turned in more than 45,000 votes. Golfweek’s Best Courses lists include: Modern, Classic, New, Casino, Municipal, Residential, Resort, Caribbean & Mexico, Courses You Can Play and Tour Courses You Can Play. The full criteria for evaluating the golf courses may be found at Top100.Golfweek.com/GolfweeksBest.
About Golfweek
Founded in 1975, Golfweek is the most authentic, authoritative and independent name in golf. Reaching more than 1.3 million readers each week, the magazine delivers the most complete news and information about the game, the people and the lifestyle to golf’s most important audience. Golfweek is part of Turnstile Publishing Company, one of the nation’s leading publishing companies specializing in high-end publications for active and affluent audiences. Turnstile Publishing Company is the parent corporation of such publications as Art Calendar, TurfNet Monthly, The Seminole Voice and The Winter Park/Maitland Observer, as well as the Web sites ArtCalendar.com, ArtScuttlebutt.com, TurfNet.com, SeminoleVoice.com, WPMObserver.com, GolfweekHomes.com and Golfweek.com, which features golf’s first online television network, GolfweekTV. Founded in 1990, Turnstile Publishing Company is headquartered in Orlando, Fla., and is also affiliated with Skyhorse Publishing.
Contact:
Elizabeth Hawkins, Marketing Director
407.563.7006
EHawkins@Golfweek.com
